


What It Takes To Break The Past

by YesBothWays



Series: Bea and Allie (without the tragedy) [4]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, F/F, Femslash, Rape Recovery, aftermath of rape, generative somatics, somatics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bea talks through sex stuff with Bridget.  Allie and Bea steal more time to be together.  Then Bea finds herself in the middle as tensions finally erupt between Juice's and Kaz's crews.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What It Takes To Break The Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ciprus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciprus/gifts), [yuriandtea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuriandtea/gifts).



> Trigger Warnings: By nature, Bea's story is about rape recovery. Aftermath of violence is depicted.

            Even though she came to Bridget’s office of her own volition, Bea sat across from Bridget now fighting the urge to stare out the window in silence. They had chatted a bit when Bea came in as they settled into their chairs. The formality and awkwardness of the dynamic left Bea a bit thrown. She did not like the power differential between them. Bridget sat quite serene and waited for Bea to begin. Bea reworked the words in her mind a few times, before she just ambled through what she wanted to say.

            “Can you help people with sex-related stuff?” Bea said.

            Bridget laughed authentically. She wasn’t laughing at Bea. She was laughing at the question. She gave Bea a curious look and continued to smile.

            “That depends on the person, I’m sure, and what precisely you mean. But I imagine I might be of some use on the subject.”

            “I just mean that you can help people figure things out about sex, just from talking things out with them?”

            “Well, ‘talk therapy’ does have its limitations. And I will state outright that many psychologists don’t know much about human sexuality. I do, though. It’s been a major focus of my studies and my practice over the years, both personally and professionally. Admittedly, I do have a particular set of politics that I ascribe to, and they’re not exactly dominant in my field when you paint a broad picture. But I do have some insights, yes. And I think I can help you gain some of your own if you’re trying to explore questions about sex and relationships at present.”

            “You know about me and Allie?”

            “I have heard rumors that you and Allie Novak are involved, yes. I hear lots of rumors, though. I would like to hear from you what’s true.”

            “We’re together.”

            “And are you finding the relationship difficult for you in some way? Intimacy in these circumstances and shifts in long-held identities can be stressful for anyone.”

            “Nah. It’s great, really. It’s just that it has led me to wonder about some things.”

            “Would you like to give me an example?”

            “I find I can’t… do some things.”

            “What do you mean when you say you ‘can’t’ do them?”

            “There are just parts of sex that I can’t enjoy.”

            “Well, everyone has preferences. If there are some things you don’t like, that’s healthy.”

            “It’s more than that for me.”

            “Why don’t you tell me what it’s like? Try to paint a portrait of your experience for me. Give me some insight, if you don’t mind.”

            “It’s like being a piece of glass that’s been shattered and all the pieces start to grate against one another.”

            Bridget seemed to listen closely and think through that. Bea got deeply self-conscious now that the words were out. She couldn’t sit still in her chair.

            “Does that sound crazy to you?” Bea asked.

            “No, it doesn’t sound crazy. It sounds like an experience of dissociation to me. Have you had any traumatic sexual experiences in your past?”

            “Sex has always been difficult for me.”

            “Do you know why that is?”

            Bea did try to come up with an answer. Her words got all tangled up in her mind. The memories and feelings that were evoked came from too many different time periods and too many situations, and it all felt disorienting.

            “Do you want to talk about your past relationships? You were in a marriage for a long time. Did you find that you and your husband were sexually compatible?”

            Bea barely suppressed a soft laugh at the absurdity of that thought. She grew self-conscious for the briefest instant, but she had shed the instinct to protect Harry’s feelings a long time ago. She answered Bridget frankly.

            “Harry wasn’t much to speak of for me. He was just… I never had much experience before we were together. I never got really crushed out on him, you know? I thought the sex would just naturally get better between us over time, but it never did. It wasn’t as meaningful to me as I’d hoped. It was… I don’t know. Just sex.”

            “And were you ever able to express your sexual frustrations with Harry?”

            Bea could not help but give scoff of laughter at that idea.  

            “Nah. I’m sure he was offended enough that I wasn’t more impressed with him. He could get rough, though.”

            “What do you mean by that? Rough how?”

            Bea didn’t answer for a long while, but Bridget must have read something off her body language. She adjusted herself in her chair. She went on as if Bea had said something already.

            “I think it might help if we take a moment and distinguish between aggressive sexuality and sexualized aggression. On the one hand, you have those expressions of passion and desire that take shape in something that very much looks like struggle or even violence on the surface, but where the goal is the equal satisfaction of both parties. Whereas, on the other hand, you have situations in which one person’s real goal is to dominate someone else, and they gain a form of pleasure that comes at the other person’s expense. Violence in its worst and most destructive forms often becomes intentionally as intimate as possible, because then it causes the most psychological damage. Sexual violence in many cases is attempt to destroy the self of someone else, not just their body, but their spirit and sense of who they are, as well.”  

            Bea sat quiet for a long time, trying to think this through. She felt herself sinking into her chair. Her back was curved, and she almost felt smaller.

            “So would you say, then, that Harry had an aggressive sexuality? And was that something that you liked about the relationship? Or did Harry at times use sex as a form of abuse?”

            Bea found she couldn’t quite look at Bridget. She made it sound simple. But it still felt complex to Bea. Different perspectives were rivaling in her mind. She felt five different ages and caught up in five ways of responding at once.

            “Harry would always get rough when I didn’t go along with things,” Bea said, and that was as simple as she could make it.

            “What things do you mean, Bea? Do you mean with sex?”

            “Yeah, sex.”

            “So he didn’t take no for an answer?”

            “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

            “Bea, you know that is not sex, right? That’s practically a textbook definition of rape. Even if it didn’t turn into a physical struggle between the two of you, if you had a sense that you were unable to express a lack of consent and have that respected without punishment, that would have created a context in which consent became an impossibility for you. So even if you had complex experiences of desiring sex while wanting to avoid certain experiences, you were not in a context in which what you communicated would have been received. It’s easy to undermine these things in marriage. We expect to lose some ownership of ourselves. At least women do, often. Do you see what I mean by all of this?”

            The tensions in Bea’s mind cleared out a little bit. She felt her jaw tensing. And she sat back up in the chair and pressed her feet into the floor. The tension in her body seemed to clear her mind.

            “I think am starting to see it now,” Bea said.

            “You mean now that you’ve had experiences with someone who does respect you? Experiences you’ve shared with Allie?”

            Bea met Bridget’s gaze and nodded with some gravity. They were quiet for a moment. Bridget seemed to be waiting to see if Bea would take the lead.

            “I just didn’t see any of it this way then. It’s hard for me, honestly, to think through all of it now. It seems far away now in some ways.”

            “Far away?”

            “Like maybe it just shouldn’t matter anymore. I didn’t see it this way then. So I’m not sure what it means to change my mind now. Doesn’t change anything.”

            “Let me ask you a question, Bea. Bear with me through this. Do you think that children ever deserve to be beaten?”

            “No, I don’t.”

            “But you know people who do think that? People who think that hitting and hurting children is the only way to make them obedient or to make them into good people?”

            “Yeah, of course.”

            “What do you think is really going on there?”

            “I think they’re just messed up people looking to take things out on their kids.”

            “Why the charade?”

            “I don’t know. So they can feel like good people, I guess.”

            “I would say that’s more or less right. Folks want a release for their repressed anger, their pent up aggressions. They want revenge for the harm that’s been done to them on whatever level whether by their own parents or by lovers or simply by the world. And society offers them a chance to see children as less than fully human and as inherently needing of punishment and discipline. So it creates an avenue where they act out things that many folks wouldn’t even assume they’re capable of doing.

            “So let me ask you this, then. In that case, when a child is being beaten, do you think it lessens the harm done if that child perceives him or herself to be deserving of that punishment? If a child feels grateful for the attention or the correction and truly believes that it’s doing them some good and that the harm done to them derives from their parents’ affection for them, does that then lessen the harm being done?”

            “Fuck no. I’d say it makes it worse.”

            “Why?”

            “’Cause you convince them that they deserved it – that it’s there fault.”

            “So it’s a double form of harm, so to speak?”

            “Yeah, I’d say so.”

            “So perhaps you’ll agree with then when I say that society has, historically, also hated women and seen them as less than fully human. And on a systemic level, that plays out often in very personal relationships, women have been the bearers of a great deal of harm and the channeling of the frustrations of other people, mostly men, many of whom feel that society has done them a great deal of harm or that they haven’t gotten the power or the recognition or, perhaps even in some cases, the love that they should have.

            “I’m of the opinion that you were one of those women. So I fail to see how your perspective could have protected you in any way or lessened that harm. And if you’re still carrying those perspectives with you now, I’d say that matters. What I hear that’s concerning in what you’ve said sounds to me like the practically universal logic of someone who has been in a situation of abuse that they could not escape for whatever reason. And that logic tells those people that they must have done something to solicit the harm done to them – that they must have deserved it. That idea protects the person who’s harming them from the threat of their own anger. And at the same time it gives them an illusion of control that offers some solace or sense that life is tolerable even to those for whom the truth would very likely prove intolerable.

            “Would you say you might agree with any of that?”

            Bea couldn’t really get herself to speak. She knew that Bridget could see that she agreed with all of it. Somehow the way she reframed things comparing the status of children with that of women had overwhelmed Bea. She was dealing with too many thoughts and feelings at once. Bea had long ago recognized that she had always felt a profound conviction that Debbie deserved far better than Bea deserved herself. And the fact that she failed to recognize how intimate the two of them really were, how much Debbie’s wellbeing was wrapped up in Bea’s fate still caused her a sharp and deep pain that she could feel in her body now. She was trying not to weep openly. Bea was overwhelmed enough that Bridget leaned forward in her seat.

            “You’ve got a lot to think through, Bea. Why don’t we call that a day?”

            Bea stood up, feeling a bit unsteady.

            “You’re doing good work, Bea,” Bridget said.

            “Thanks,” Bea managed, before she left Bridget’s office.

 

            The next few days found things heating up between Kaz and Juice. A batch of newbies had arrived, and Juice immediately targeted one of them, a young woman named Lily. Doreen and Liz tried to keep an eye on everyone who was green, but they were scattered throughout the other units, which made their job harder. Bea found that the tension between Kaz’s crew and Juice’s too thick to be ignored in the common spaces. In response, Bea and all of her crew gravitated towards H block and away from the conflict without even discussing what they would do. They were all still laying low and wanting some more time, some more rest. That common desire coupled with the fear of being drawn back into the thick of things made them all feel closer.

            Bea made her way to Bridget’s office about a week after their first conversation. She questioned herself all the way down the hall. Bridget had told her she had an open slot that she was holding for Bea when they saw one another a few days before. Bea noticed she felt more at ease she walked into Bridget’s office this time, and she tried to remind herself to keep her guard up. She sat down carefully in the chair.  

            “Have you thought much about our last conversation since you left here?” Bridget said.

            “It’s been on my mind a bit,” Bea admitted.

            Bridget seemed to take stock of Bea’s guardedness. She leaned forward in her chair. She got a file with a bunch of papers in it. She offered them to Bea as she spoke.

            “I put together some information about experiences of dissociation, which is what I think you described to me when were last here,” Bridget said. “It’s a common experience for people with PTSD. Do you know what that is?”

            “It’s what soldiers get.”

            “Right. It’s not exclusive to soldiers, though, post-traumatic stress syndrome. It’s only recently become better understood, and soldiers were the first demographic in whom it was recognized. The stunning realization for therapists was that the mind and body are more intimately connected than we had thought. Memory actually gets stored in the body, and healing work can be done with a focus not on the mind, but on the body instead. That so went against the tenants of psychotherapy that many have failed to respond to the discovery so far. There’s a lot of neuroscience to explain and reveal how dissociation works nowadays, and it all sounds rather complex. But I think it makes intuitive sense to people who have lived through these kinds of experiences.

            “You’ve probably heard it said before that humans respond to threat in three basic ways: fight, flight, or freeze. In a sense, dissociation is basically the result when someone freezes. Usually that happened when the options of fighting a threat or fleeing it are not available or perhaps aren’t recognizable as possibilities – say in children who can’t escape their homes or in soldiers who will be imprisoned or killed by their own side if they don’t continue to engage in combat. Those people often have a sense of being numb or out of body during their experiences of trauma. They’ll sometimes describe watching themselves from a distance while it’s happening.

            “Scientists can now show clearly that parts of the brain will shut down during traumatic experiences. This allows a person to tolerate the intolerable and survive it, whereas a fully comprehended experience would become overwhelming. The result, however, is that emotions and sensations that are shut down can remain shut down long after the experience. And the emotional or sensory reality of the experience that was suppressed or shut out wants to surface later, when the person is someplace safe.

            “Therapists refer to those things that bring out a past experience of trauma triggers. The result can be as intense as a flashback that includes visual or auditory experiences from the past. Or it can be as simple as spacing out, losing your ability to fully experience of the present moment. And there is a broad range of experiences that fall somewhere in between.

            “From what you said last time, I think you be having experiences of dissociation. Perhaps you’ve only recently started noticing. And if you’re having a lot of sexual experiences that you haven’t had before or for a long time, you might be experiencing emotions or sensations that are triggering more than you were before.”

            “How do you stop it?” Bea asked.

            “Well, you don’t stop it, per se. That will result in arresting or rather preventing the release of traumatic experiences from the body, and they remain frozen there. It can be rather painful and difficult if a person spends their whole life avoiding triggers. It takes away certain freedoms and the ability to have a lot of desirable experiences.

            “What you can do is learn to move through it with an increasing amount of skill. So you can choose to move away from a trigger if it feels like it’s too much for you, or you can choose to move towards one. And you’ll learn that there’s a finite amount of trauma actually stored in your body, even though it seems limitless at first. You don’t have to keep doing the same work over and over, although it does take time.”

Bea had never heard of anything like this before. But it did seem to make sense to her. Bridget’s description felt uncanny in its familiarity, as if she had known all this long ago and forgotten in somehow. As a result of how resonant it felt, Bea felt instinctively skeptical. She worried that she might get carried away by her desire to find something that would work and end up sucked into some belief system. She flipped through the sheets Bridget had given her, copied out from some book.

            “Did you learn about all this in your schooling?”

            “No. I didn’t. They don’t teach anything this generally radical at the university where I went. It’s all talk therapy and a lot of use of medications.”

            “How did you learn about it?”

            “Well, as I said before there are other demographics besides soldiers who experience PTSD. Those include groups who have been absorbing societal violence for a long time, and that includes women, pretty much any non-white people, and practically anyone who is not considered straight. I learned about it because of my own community, and I tried to let it inform my practice.

            “It is completely up to you, of course, if and how you use the information I’ve just presented you with,” Bridget said. “But if you still want my advice, I’d say just go slow with all this, try out the techniques, and see how it feels.”

            Bea could already tell that Bridget meant to leave her alone. She had been worried that Bridget would come after her and want her to talk about Harry over and over again. She felt a deep and genuine gratitude for the fact that Bridget was offering her resources and backing away more than anything. When she stood up to leave, Bridget stood to open the door. Bea found herself reaching out to shake Bridget’s hand. Bridget gave a genuine smile but remained quiet. Bea moseyed down the hall, holding the file close to her side.

 

            Bea hid the files in her room as carefully as she would have hidden a weapon. She couldn’t even explain to herself why. She feigned a couple of afternoon naps over the next week and read through everything a few times, during the day when everyone was away. She didn’t like thinking about Harry, but the stories other women told about their own experiences in what she read brought back a lot of memories. She worried that remembering would kill her desire in the present day, especially since the memories felt especially clear and detailed, like her body itself could remember how it felt. But instead, her desire to have sex with Allie seemed only to increase and felt more profound. They stayed up late many nights in a row, and they would just keep on kissing after they had had sex for so long that they found themselves having sex again. There was no doubt Allie could tell Bea was going through something, but it didn’t take on a clear enough shape for her to ask any questions.

            Following the techniques in the books Bridget had copied out for her, Bea got something like a map in her mind of what made her check out of her body and what kept her in it. Some of it she had known intuitively but not consciously. When they kissed or when she held onto Allie’s hands, it was easier to remain present. If she couldn’t see Allie or feel her body very clearly, she would be thrown. She felt glad that they hadn’t tried to have sex in the dark on that first night they were together and that Allie would usually turn on some light just out of preference. She tried alone and found that she couldn’t stay present while touching inside her body. If she tried when she was really turned on, say soon after Allie left, it wouldn’t hurt but would feel good enough. And if she kept breathing and stayed with it, she could even get it to start sending sensations of more intense pleasure up through her lower back. A sadness seemed to come out along with them that felt that it might swallow her up. The whole process made her tired, even more tired than staying up late could explain, and she found herself sneaking away to actually nap during the day.

            Bea started to picture her sexuality like a vast house where she had lived her whole life. Rooms that had been closed off when she was younger were in good shape now, but the ones inhabited by her marriage and even her few experiences before were a wreck. Everything had been ripped down from the walls and was smashed to pieces. She imagined it would be a shame to bring anyone in there. She didn’t even want to be in there herself.

            Allie came and woke Bea from a nap one afternoon. She slipped into bed beside her. Bea had fallen asleep with the papers Bridget had given her still out. Rather than to try and hide them, she decided to tell Allie about it. Allie was soft and interested about the whole thing. She read through a lot of what was there, while Bea lay beside her and continued to really wake up. Allie rubbed Bea’s back with one hand and squeezed gently at the tense muscles along her shoulders as she read.

            “This stuff is really cool,” Allie said. “Maybe Westfall isn’t so bad. I wish there was more in this chapter that’s for partners.”

            “She put that in there for you, I think.”

            “Did you two talk about us?”

            “Only in the most general terms.”

            “I’m not worried about it,” Allie said, looking over at Bea. “Just curious. Whatever happens between us is your story, too.”

            “Thanks. That’s real generous of you.”

            “I try,” Allie said with a laugh that meant she thought this was no big deal. “I’ve been relieved that you finally stopped saying things were fine and that you were always just weird about sex. You used to freak me out a little bit with all that talk."

            “Did I?” Bea said.

            “Yeah, you did. I didn’t want to assume anything. But your husband’s violence was actually famous, you know. Especially after your second trial. They reported on a lot of stuff from the first one.”

            “Why?”

            “To put a spin on things – speculation. Why not? It’s not like the news has any decency. I heard a story once about him tying you to the stairs and leaving you there overnight.”

            “Oh, yeah. I forgot David testified.”

            “Was that a friend of yours?”

            “Nah. One of Harry’s, from work. Didn’t last long. He didn’t like the way Harry treated me. Apparently, he couldn’t keep a lid on it when he was drunk.”

            “Why? Was he guilty about it?”

            “I imagine it was more complaining or bragging.”

            Allie gave a disgusted scoff. Bea had to admit Harry was perplexing. Even after being married to him for seventeen years, Bea could never understand where all his hatred had come from. He couldn’t keep away from it even for a few weeks at a time.

            “He could’ve done something about it.,” Allie said, meaning David.

            “He did. He went to the cops. I lied, so nothing happened.”

            “Oh, God. Well, anyways, I’m glad you don’t have to lie about it anymore.”

            “I never meant to lie to you, Allie.”

            “I didn’t mean it that way, Bea.”

            “Sorry I kept this stuff from you.”

            “Jesus, Bea!” Allie said. She shifted down in the bed to get her arms around Bea. “You’re allowed some privacy. It’s not the same thing as a secret. You know, sometimes you can be very literal about things.”

            “I’ll try to be more figurative,” Bea teased. “I’ll draw you an image of how I feel.”

            “You do that. I’m sure I’d like it.”

 

            The joke turned into a bit of a project. Bea never cared much for expressionistic art. She was always more of a realist. But she found that if she started with an image that meant something and built a kind of dreamscape around it, she really could draw something like what she felt. She thought it was funny that thinking about sex would change her drawings, but there was no question that it did.

            She showed a handful of them to Allie all at once when they were alone together in her room once the unit was locked in for the night. Bea had one that suggested a warped staircase leading up and away, and a bundle of rope with many cut ends was tangled in the slats of the railing. Allie seemed to take special notice of that and stared at it for a good minute. One had a lot of waves and bubbles that suggested the ocean. The ends of a drenched hair falling down a back and a solid rock coming up out of the water were the only other clear images in that one.

            “I think I like this one even more than I like the others,” Allie said.

            “Well, that’s good then, ‘cause that one is about you.”

            “Really?” Allie said.

            “Yeah,” Bea said. “Or rather, how I feel with you.”

            Bea had been lying quietly beside Allie, trying not to fuss too much. Having her look over these new drawings was a lot like being seen naked. Except that she was finally used to that, while this was a new experience and laced with fresh awkwardness.

            “You’re an artist, Bea.”

            “Thanks. Debbie used to say that.”

            “Well, she was definitely right. You take things and make them your own. It’s like I’ve never seen any of these things before. Even though they’re all commonplace.”

            Eventually, Allie gathered all the pictures up and leaned far enough forward to put them on Bea’s chair. She came and snuggled in close to Bea on her side. She pushed the hair away from Bea’s face and let her hand trail through it, feeling the distinct texture of her curls. Allie’s eyes were heavy already, and Bea reached a hand between her thighs and pressed the side of her hand up against her body. Allie tensed, grew heavy, and closed her eyes. Allie leaned into her elbow to bring herself a little closer, and Bea shifted in closer and turned her face up to bring their mouths together. She parted Allie’s lips and brushed over them with her tongue, before putting a hand at the back of Allie’s neck and pulling her down into a full kiss.

            Allie carefully shifted onto her back, bringing Bea with her. She pulled Bea by the arms in order to bring Bea over her. She buried her hands in Bea’s hair as they kissed more. The feel of Allie’s body so clearly wanting to open up to her and Allie’s hands pulling her close made every other thought clear out of Bea’s mind. She took up a total focus on Allie, pulling away her clothes as much to reveal the subtle shifts and tensions in her body that indicated what she was wanting as anything else.

            Bea had learned how to take the lead and still follow a kind of dialogue between them. When Allie gripped her hands that were still pressed into Bea’s hair, Bea could feel what she wanted and leaned down to kiss Allie’s breasts. When faint movement akin to trembling spread through Allie’s chest, Bea slipped a hand between her legs again. She pressed in and back when she found Allie wet and open, and then she tugged her hand forward to make her clench and moan. Allie grasped Bea’s arms and let her back bend, and Bea felt that she grew lost herself in the depths of Allie’s surrender.

            She always loved feeling Allie’s breath grow heavier and form into gasps. Even with her body tense enough to make her muscles shake, Allie could keep on breathing. Allie’s voice rose up from a place deep enough in her body that her moans came in what was nearly a rasp. Bea felt herself smile at the familiar sound, which she had only ever heard when they were in bed together. Eventually, Allie’s held her breath, and then her cries became more intense. Bea came up to kiss Allie and let her take Bea into an embrace as Allie shivered and Bea felt the last, lingering waves of pleasure move through her body.

            They kept on kissing with the same passion even as their bodies grew quiet. Bea held Allie by the back of the neck and pulled her up a little into their kiss. She felt Allie shiver a few times with what would always seem to her like aftershocks of pleasure that would come when she had been really overcome in the moments before. Bea let her hands rest on Allie’s body in order to feel. Her kisses became soft as her mouth moved across Allie’s neck and her collarbones. Allie wrapped her arm around Bea’s neck, incredibly relaxed. Bea came down to lie against Allie and kept some of her weight propped on her elbows.

            Eventually, Bea shifted over onto her side. Allie turned and put her arm over Bea’s hip to get a hand in the small of her back. She tugged Bea in a little closer. They started to make out softly, and the passing of time seemed indistinguishable to Bea. Her heart almost ached with the love and sense of fulfillment she had in these moments. She had only found a tiny handful of places in life even nearly as peaceful as being alone with Allie this way. She felt incredibly lucky, so much it dispelled her usual sense of being chronically unlucky. Her life before seemed singled out for pain and tragedy. Bea wasn’t sure so about that now. Things could change. Why shouldn’t they? As bad as things were, they could be that good. There was no reason why they couldn’t.

            Allie noticed Bea smiling to herself.

            “What are you thinking about?” Allie asked and turned over onto her back.

            Bea put her hand in the center of Allie’s chest to feel her heartbeat.

            “I’m thinking about how much life can change,” Bea said.

            “In a good way or bad?”’

            “I used to think that good changes took place slowly and took time to accrue. I thought they were fragile. Whereas terrible things hit you like a hammer all at once.”

            “I thought the bad things in my life came on slowly – like getting into drugs and ending up homeless – and the good things showed up unexpected and all at once.”

            “I think now that it’s both. It all depends. Everything sort of has its own pacing, you know? I didn’t even know you existed a year ago.”

            Allie couldn’t suppress a grin in response to Bea’s tone of voice when she said this. She pressed her hand up against Bea’s, matching the pads of their fingers together. Then she let their fingers entwine and gripped Bea’s hand a little bit. After a little while, Allie ran her hands over Bea’s shoulders. She felt her way down Bea’s back and over her arms. Her entire focused seemed absorbed in the project.

            “You really are very sexy, you know that?” Allie said.

            Bea was taken off guard and just laughed. She couldn’t help but grow bashful and hid her face with her hand for a minute. Allie’s eyes grew soft, and she grinned at Bea. She bit her lip and looked Bea up and down again, not hiding it from Bea. Bea got her tangled up in an embrace to stop her, and then they were kissing again. Simply from the quality of the pressure of Allie’s lips on her own, Bea could tell that Allie wanted her. She put her hands on the small of Allie’s back to pull her in and try to encourage her. It didn’t take much, and, guided by Bea’s hands, Allie came over her.

            When they were first together, Bea found it difficult to let Allie be over her this way. Now, it was easy. Allie grasped both of Bea’s hands and pressed them into the pillow just above her shoulders. This made her chest open up, and Bea felt her lips part on instinct. She used to wonder how it could be so easy to be with Allie. And she had an irrational fear that it would fade out quickly like some form of infatuation. Nothing of the sort had proven to be true. Instead, the chemistry between them had only matured into something even stronger.

            The feel of Allie’s hands moving all over her body left Bea so relaxed that when Allie drew back a little, Bea had to concentrate just to lean forward and look at Allie. They shared a smile, and Allie leaned in to bite softly at Bea’s lower lip. Her hands moved to Bea’s breasts as she did, and Bea felt herself draw in a slow breath until her chest was filled and hold it there. Allie was in no rush, and she kissed every place she could think of on Bea’s body. Her touch ran over the scarring on Bea’s inner thigh that she had worn nearly smooth by a gentle pressure over the months. They were fading into Bea’s skin and could barely be felt now. Allie had to search them out with her fingertips.

            Allie opened Bea up. She kept her touch slow and moved her hand in long, lingering strokes. Bea could not help but make soft moans at the feel of it. Allie kissed over her ribs and in the middle of her chest. Allie had a kind of patience about her tonight that made it clear how focused she was. She meant to take her time. And Bea felt herself to be even more willing and present tonight than usual. The presence of the two of them together in her bed felt clear and uncomplicated. There was nothing uneasy about the desire building up in her body. Instead, she felt a sort of joy already that made Allie’s touch feel beautifully resonant.

            The idea of asking Allie to touch her inside kept floating through Bea’s mind. She couldn’t quite get it centered, couldn’t make it real enough to ask. She shifted underneath Allie almost uncomfortably, and Allie rose up a little bit and moved more to side to give Bea more freedom. She angled herself better and drew Allie close. Somehow, it occurred to Bea to consider where she was feeling this thought in her body. It felt like an ache in her low stomach. When she shifted on the bed, she could feel it was longing. And it felt like a strain in her chest. Even when she tried to breath fully, she couldn’t quite manage to do it. As Allie kissed her mouth, Bea felt almost a bit winded.

            Allie kept on kissing Bea, but a kind of curiosity seemed to build in her body. She could tell that Bea was thinking or feeling something she couldn’t read off her. Bea found that she couldn’t stop kissing Allie. And she realized that she probably wasn’t going to be able to ask her for what she wanted with spoken words. So she reached down and took Allie’s hand to try and show her what she wanted.

            Allie broke from their kiss to look down. She caught on to what Bea wanted from her quickly. She looked back at Bea’s face with surprise showing clearly in her expression. The weight of her desire was also clear in her expression, and she didn’t try to hide it from Bea.

            “Tell me when to stop, okay?” Allie said.

            Bea held onto Allie’s shoulders. She could feel that Allie was prepared to reach inside of her. She could feel Allie hesitating to go on. By the time she turned back to Bea to double check, Bea had worked through her answer.

            “I might lose my voice,” Bea said.

            Allie looked at Bea’s face a bit closer. Allie’s lips were parted. Bea could almost see her become divided between the passion making her want to go on and a need to understand what Bea was telling her first. She grasped Bea’s hand that was held in her own.

            “Then just grip my wrist when it’s time for me to stop,” Allie said.

            Bea grasped Allie’s wrist once to make sure Allie knew she would. Then she entwined her fingers in Allie’s once more. That was enough, and Allie turned at once and leaned down to look as she slipped into Bea for the first time since their first night together in bed.  

            Bea’s heart was beating suddenly as if she’d been running. Allie leaned her head down onto Bea’s chest. She came up, got her hand on the back of Bea’s neck, and pulled into an almost hard kiss. Her mouth grew soft against Bea’s, as she kissed her over and over, opening her mouth. Her fingers were just as soft as they got Bea to open up and she tried to learn the shape of her. Allie’s touch gathered all of Bea’s attention for what seemed an incredibly prolonged moment. She could feel her heartbeat had settled but was still beating hard. She held onto Allie and kissed her more as she tried to gather a full sense of herself.

            Bea got a sense that she was poised somewhere in between staying present and checking out. Her hearing seemed muffled, and she could felt like the pressure of her blood wanting to rush through her body pressed at the sides of her neck. Nothing was quite pain, but the pleasure she knew might be there felt stifled. She realized she was holding her eyes shut. She got herself to open them. She let go the tension held in her spine to lean back enough to see Allie. She felt herself shake when she did and knew it was from becoming overwhelmed almost at once.

            Allie’s touch changed gradually. She proved capable of figuring out exactly how to cause the strongest sensations of pleasure in Bea’s body. Bea had never before felt anything quite like what she felt now. The shocks of pleasure that seemed to spread through her low stomach and roll up the base of her spine felt heavier and deeper somehow than what she was used to tolerating, like bass notes instead of treble. The waves of sadness she had felt before with came along with them and grew stronger. Bea felt like she could sink into the sense of grief buried inside of her and let everything that was happening fade out. She tried to hold on to the surrounding experience instead.

            Bea found herself holding Allie’s face in her hands. She tried to get herself to look at her, tried to get herself to feel Allie’s body alongside her own. After a while, she moved a bit so that she could shift her hips along with the movement of Allie’s hand. She lay back for a while, almost completely overwhelmed, but she stayed with it. Allie must have intuited something, and she led Bea to move higher in the bed and sit up more. The shift in her posture and tension in her legs made the feel of Allie’s touch grow more vivid, and Bea felt herself making soft sounds that matched the pressure of Allie’s touch.

            A heat seemed to break out in Bea’s body, and she found herself shivering. A feeling of being overcome that she had only ever experienced when choked with grief rose up inside of her, but it came alongside waves of intense pleasure that seemed to break through her body now. Bea felt herself start to rise up into an orgasm, but she was almost afraid to find out how this would feel. Allie leaned in to put her mouth on Bea as she kept touching her. Nothing except Allie’s touch was in Bea’s mind then, and she leaned forward and clutched Allie as she felt herself finally able to give in.

            Bea held perfectly still for a moment, not even breathing. When she leaned back a little and let herself take a breath, a sob rose up in her chest. She fought it at first, but then she found herself giving in and weeping. Allie looked up at her, then she started kissing Bea’s body. She started on her low stomach between the bones of her hips, and she moved up over the center of her chest. She kissed the side of Bea’s neck and leaned in close.

            Bea was trembling, but the weeping that came over her had passed through quickly. They kissed, and the room felt strangely quiet to Bea. Allie’s hands ran over her body, and Bea felt that she almost had to learn again how to tolerate something that felt so incredibly vivid. Allie held Bea’s face in her hands. Bea’s hands were shaking where they held onto Allie’s wrist. Allie rested her head against Bea’s neck for a long moment.

            “Was it too much?” Allie asked.

            “I don’t think so,” Bea said.

            She honestly wasn’t quite sure yet. She imagined she would feel exhausted as soon as the intense energy settled out of her body. She felt rattled still. But there was a relief to how she felt, as well. And her heart seemed almost to be pulsing with a heat that could only be described as love. A worry came over Bea, and she took Allie’s face in her hands now.

            “Are you okay?” Bea said.

            Allie seemed very mildly perplexed by her question. She gave the slowest and sweetest smile. Then she laughed a tiny bit and buried her face again in the hair over Bea’s shoulder. Bea held Allie to her chest and stopped worrying about her.

 

            The feel of that first night of moving towards some injured place inside of herself along with Allie stayed with Bea for days. She felt as if she carried a quiet with her – not the eerie, empty quiet she had known many times before, but a kind of present, stillness, a peace. She hadn’t expected to find anything like this in life. It was hard to imagine she was worthy of it.  

            She had lost focus on the way things were going between Kaz and Juice. She hadn’t though to worry about Lily. Somehow all of it seemed miles away from Bea. She was walking back from the phones with Maxine and Allie when that finally changed, and she was snapped back into the reality of everything she had worked so hard and carefully to avoid.

            Bea noticed Officer Miles coming from the hallway to the guardroom. There were already two officers inside, which meant that Miles would have been guarding the showers but had come down for something. There was something there – something in Miles gait, her look that caught Bea’s attention. When she saw Doreen walking towards her without Lily nearby, a red flag raise itself and flash in her mind.

            “Fuck,” Bea said through gritted teeth.

            She turned, dodging away from Allie and Maxine, and ran down the hall to the showers. There was a woman who on lookout who tried to grab her, but Bea slammed her against the wall with an audible crack. She didn’t even fully register who it was. She righted herself and slammed open the swinging doors, heedless of any notice she might draw.

            Bea didn’t find what she thought she was going to find. Kaz and five other women had Juice on the ground. They had broken sticks and billiard balls from the rec room. Hersh was in the corner with what was clearly a broken arm. She seemed barely conscious. And Tops had what looked like a broken nose and a cut that was bleeding badly on her temple. Juice was already unconscious, and the others were wanting to stop and stand back. Kaz’s voice was still egging them on. In an instant, Bea knew they were within inches of beating Juice to death. She rushed forward without thinking.

            “Stop! Kaz! Stop!” Bea yelled.

            Bea pulled one woman off. The woman turned to fight Bea, and Bea barely managed to push her away. She slipped in the blood and fell. She managed to right herself and stood ready, with her hands out in front of her.

            Bea could see Kaz considering whether to tell the others to go for Bea, as well. When she tried to interfere, Bea became nothing more than Juice’s ally in Kaz’s mind. Perhaps she was even less for Kaz’s hatred of her. Bea had her hands held out. She said nothing. She just looked at Kaz, trying to wait for her to come back to herself even a little.

            “It’s enough,” Bea said, breathless. “You’ve got to stop now.”

            The showers were still running, and the curtains were tossed and ripped. Water ran out onto the main floor, and nearly the entire room was red with blood. The atmosphere in the room felt poised on the edge of sheer madness. The hair on the back of Bea’s neck felt as if it stood on end. She thought for sure all six of them were about to go for her. And that would be it. Just one, messy, brutal fight before the end.

            The door opened behind her. Bea turned to see Allie and Maxine come in. Her heart like it would tear in half the panic that swept through her was so strong. Both Maxine and Allie were now looking at Kaz in obvious horror. Bea wanted to take a step to get in front of the two of them. She was afraid to slip in the blood again and merely held out her arms to try and block anyone who might rush at them.

            “Oh, Kaz,” Maxine said, her voice barely audible.

            Kaz was staring at them all with nothing except a narrow-minded hatred in her look. Bea wasn’t even sure Kaz knew rightly who they all were, she was so far gone. Bea felt certain everything was about to turn into a frenzy of unchecked violence. And she wasn’t about to move from where she was.

            “Maxine! Take Allie out of here!” Bea commanded.

            She readied herself to make jump for the nearest woman if anyone moved towards the door. Maxine said nothing, but Bea heard the door swing shut. She was sure they had gone.

            Suddenly, Allie and Maxine were right there, stepping between Bea and Kaz’s crew. _Fuck_ , Bea thought. She might have yelled, but she had completely lost her ability to speak. She had never felt a moment of fear as strong as what came over her now in her life before this moment. And she waited for anyone to make a move, poised to explode into the most violent and unrestrained fight of her life.

            Everyone stood perfectly still. They were waiting for Kaz. Some of her crew were asking her for orders, goading her into letting them take down Bea along with Allie and Maxine. Kaz looked much like a wild animal, and she seemed to snap under the pressure. Kaz grasped at her own hair.

            “Fuck!” Kaz yelled.

She yelled it over and over again. Kaz turned and punched both fists into a mirror. She ripped the frame from the wall and threw the glass onto Juice. Some of it landed on Bea, too. She turned her face to keep it from hitting her in the eyes. Kaz had cut her hands, but she went for another mirror right away. This one she tossed on the floor. She would have gone for a third.

            “Stop her!” Allie yelled in exasperation to the rest of Kaz’s crew.

            All five women responded at once and moved to draw Kaz away from the sinks. Someone had finally taken the lead, and it was Allie. As if a spell had been broken, the threat of continued violence went out of the room. Allie walked over and pressed the panic button. She looked around at all the others as the sound began to fill the room.

            “We have to go,” Maxine said to the others.

            “Get the fuck out,” Kaz said to her crew.

            Kaz leaned her back into the wall and sank down. She was weeping. Allie got a robe from the wall and tied it around Kaz’s hands. Maxine got the others to go, then she got Allie by the shoulders and led her towards the door. Bea found a towel pressed it to the gash in the back of Juice’s head. She held it there and waved the two of them to go on. They listened to Bea this time and went.

            In the spaces between the alarm, the room seemed terrifyingly quiet. Bea looked around at all the blood covering the floor, spread out by the water. She saw from her pant leg that her own clothes were nearly soaked in it. She rubbed her face high on her sleeve, her mind flashing over all the times she’d seen teal and white fabrics stained a dark red that would never be washed out.

            “I thought I had it under control,” Kaz said.

            They could hear the screws coming from down the hall. Mr. Jackson’s shouts came the clearest. Even though Juice’s blood was already seeping through the cloth in Bea’s hands, sitting alone the way she was, Kaz’s life seemed just as fragile to Bea. They were all of them poised on the edge of destruction, equals.

            “None of us ever have had,” Bea said simply, and she wiped her face again on her sleeve.

**Author's Note:**

> Bridget's ideas in this story are modeled on the ideas of Staci Haines, a therapist, activist, and writer who practices generative somatics, and also informed by radical feminist ideas gathered in works such as the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Empowerment and a World Without Rape.


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